Article Response: "Disney Research App Turns 2D Drawings into 3D Characters"

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    One of the first things you learn how to do when you're young is how to draw and color using a variety of different utensils and supplies, such as colored pencils, a box of crayons, gel pens, glitter glue, etc. Scribbling through coloring books has always been considered fun for children, and with technology advancing and improving everyday, people working at Disney have thought of a way to make coloring more engaging and enjoyable. This article, written by Jennifer Wolfe, goes more in-depth with the app Disney Research has created and what it does.

    The app was primarily created for children to be able to turn their 2D drawings into 3D animated characters, just by holding a tablet/smartphone over it. The app monitors the drawing and is able to take the character and make it move. During user testing, with adults rather than children since the app is still in early study, many of them agreed that it increased their motivation to draw in coloring books. This could be a great invention to encourage kids to be more creative and imaginative. 

    However, it's more complicated than it may seem. For instance, applying color to the back of the character was a more difficult process, since they wanted to make sure there weren't noticeable seams where the color would stop. They decided to create a "lookup map" for the characters, which would match the pixels on the front of the drawing to the back of it, and carefully connect it so that there would be no breaks in the coloring. Also, because paper in coloring books doesn't lie perfectly flat, the team created a "deformable surface tracking method to monitor surface changes and to keep the virtual character".

    The app seems like a very intriguing invention that could easily catch the attention of anyone at any age who likes to color and draw. Although, I believe the app itself may be slightly problematic due to glitching, and not to mention it may take up a lot of space on your device of choice because of how advanced it is. But, it's great to see that people are working to bring our childhood dreams to life, because really, who didn't want their terribly scribbled drawing to be able to move when we were little?